Chicana Portraits: Critical Biographies of Twelve Chicana Writers

The book pairs portraits with critical biographies of twelve key Chicana writers, offering an engaging look at their work, contributions to the field, and major achievements. It can be read cover to cover for a genealogical overview or jumped into at any point. Contributors include Raquel Valle-Sentíes, Angela de Hoyos, Montserrat Fontes, Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Norma E. Cantú, Denise E. Chávez, Carmen Tafolla, Cherríe Moraga, Ana Castillo, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Sandra Cisneros, and Demetria Martínez.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 362 pages
Publication date: 31 October 2023
Publisher: University of Arizona Press

This innovative collection pairs portraits with critical biographies of twelve key Chicana writers, offering an engaging look at their work, contributions to the field, and major achievements. Artist Raquel Valle-Sentíess portraits bring visual dimension, while essays delve deeply into the authors' lives for details that inform their literary, artistic, feminist, and political trajectories and sensibilities. The collection brilliantly intersects artistic visual and literary cultural productions, allowing complex themes to emerge, such as the fragility of life, sexism and misogyny, Chicana agency and forging one's own path, the struggles of becoming a writer and battling self-doubt, economic instability, and political engagement and activism. Arranged chronologically by birth order of the authors, the book can be read cover to cover for a genealogical overview, or scholars and general readers can easily jump in at any point and read about an individual author, regardless of the chronology. Biographies included in this work include Raquel Valle-Sentíes, Angela de Hoyos, Montserrat Fontes, Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Norma E. Cantú, Denise Elia Chávez, Carmen Tafolla, Cherríe Moraga, Ana Castillo, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Sandra Cisneros, and Demetria Martínez. Contributors include Cordelia E. Barrera, Mary Pat Brady, Norma E. Cantú, María Jesus Castro Dopacio, Carlos Nicolás Flores, Myrriah Gómez, Maria Magdalena Guerra de Charur, Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs, Georgina Guzmán, Cristina Herrera, María Esther Quintana, Eliza Rodríguez y Gibson, Meagan Solomon, Lourdes Torres, Raquel Valle-Sentíes, Jen Yáñez-Alaniz, and many others.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780816551811